Is Paris Safe To Drink?

Parisians taking their ease last
Wednesday,
without politics.

Untouched by Doubt: the Baguette

Paris:- Sunday, 20. June 1999:- On Tuesday, 15.
June, France's secretaries of State for Consumers and
Health, decided to pull 50 million cans of Coca-Cola,
Coca-Cola Light, Fanta and Sprite off the French market
shelves.

The spectacular action came after 30 schoolkids in
northern Belgium fell ill after drinking cans of Coke on
Tuesday, 7. June. On Friday of the same week, Belgium
Minister of Health ordered all bottles and cans filled by
the soft drink manufacturer's plant in Dunkirk to be
removed from the market. This action concerned 15 million
units.

On the same day, the Belgians sent a health warning to
French authorities because the Dunkirk bottling plant
served markets other than Belgium as well.
The following day, French health officials ordered chemical
analysis of the products at a Bordeaux laboratory, but the
results of the tests are not expected before the end of
this week.

Consumers have be alerted to the identifying codes on
the soft drinks produced at the Dunkirk plant. On Monday,
it was known that products from this plant are also
distributed in Holland, Luxembourg and Germany and their
authorities stepped in to control the same products.

Last Tuesday, the Coca-Cola Company announced a cause of
the contamination. According the company, it was caused by
a disinfectant used to spray the plastic-wrapped palettes
on soft drinks before shipment. Most of the production at
the Dunkirk plant is destined for Belgium.

Victims claimed the accidently-sprayed cans gave off an
unpleasant odor. Symptoms included headaches and upset
stomachs, and some victims had to be hospitalized.

In an unrelated incident, a bottling plant at Anvers in
Belgium was also found to be using defective carbon
dioxide, used in the manufacture of small 20 cl. bottles of
Coke.

In Thursday's editions, it was reported that 80
consumers had been affected in France. A day later,
anti-poison centres had registered over 700 phone
calls.

But given the size of the operation to take all the
products off the shelves, French authorities decided on
Friday to order the removal only of the production from
Dunkirk. These can be identified by the code letters DL,
DV, DW, DP and DX printed on the bottom of the cans.

Although the results of the government-ordered Bordeaux
lab tests were not available on Friday, Coca-Cola held a
press conference to state that the contents were not an
issue - that only the outside of some of the containers
were contaminated.

Consumers Are Passive

While the contaminated soft drinks have caused a huge
uproar because so much of them are consumed by children -
and adults - many Europeans seem to have a resigned
attitude to other cases of food contamination.

Recently it was found that some Belgian poultry products
have been contaminated with dioxin. The source was found to
be feed made partly from animal matter.

This incident caused a bit of a stir when consumers got
some idea of how widely poultry products are distributed -
not just as whole chickens and eggs, but all the other
products that contain them, such as mayonnaise.

This in turn recalls the 'Mad Cow Disease' which had
more of less the same source of contamination. Although it
seldom makes headlines any more, cases of 'Mad Cow Disease'
still pop up
with some frequency; usually with a laconic announcement of
an entire herd being destroyed on the orders of health
authorities.

Cheeses have been hard hit lately in France and one
doesn't know if it is a regular thing or is just being made
more public.

The root of the problem is the absolute necessity to
have absolutely germ-free conditions when treating cheese
made from whole, unpasteurized milk. Cheeses made with this
milk are very popular in France.